The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
The present invention is directed to a self-donning nursing gown that enables self-donning of a gown while maintaining sterile integrity. The gown provides a pair of shoulder pads having a heavy consistency and grip for gripping the shoulders and maintaining a secure mount on the shoulders. An adhesive panel on a front portion of the gown adheres to the chest area for detachably fastening the gown to the user while the gown is donned.
It is known that surgical gowns are utilized by health care professionals to protect themselves from exposure to fluids and micro-organisms during a surgical procedure. The surgical gown also minimizes contamination of the patient by the health care professional. As such, the health care professionals must keep their hands and arms within a sterile field. The traditional sterile field is the ventral side of the health care professional from approximately the chest or nipple line to the waist. The traditional sterile field also encompasses the area from approximately the elbows to the fingertips.
The inventor is a medical surgeon with fifteen years' experience who understands and appreciates the importance of maintaining a sterile environment in the operating room. A sterile surgical environment is of paramount importance in order to limit the possibility of infection and other complications; for this reason, surgeons have long since worn traditional surgical gowns and limited the number persons in the operation room when performing operations on patients.
The traditional surgical gown is sterile, delivered in a sterilized package, and requires the assistance of another in order for the wearer to don the gown. This is so because the traditional surgical gown has an opening in the back of the gown that can only be closed from behind. As the back of the gown is outside the region typically referred to as the “sterile zone” the wearer of the gown cannot reach behind to close the gown without the assistance of others as doing so would require the wearer to reach behind and place her hands in a non-sterile environment thereby defeating the purpose of wearing a sterilized gown in the first place.
The inventor recognized that there was a great disadvantage of using a traditional surgical gown is that an additional person is needed to don the gown, this not only crowds an already congested area, but it requires the person donning the gown to use precious time that could be directed to the patient's needs.
The inventor also realized that when a medical professional was donning a gown alone, the hands and arms often became exposed to non-sterile fields, such as fasteners, rear areas of the gown, and the head.
Through additional research, the inventor learned that a heavy, grip material could be used to secure the inside surface of the gown to the shoulders and arms of a user. The advantage was increased when the inventor experimented and saw that the gown could be wiggled and shrugged into alignment with the shoulders and body by moving the shoulders in an up and down motion.
However, the inventor saw that once the gown was fully donned, it still had a tendency to slip off the user. The inventor experimented with adhesives and learned that an adhesive panel could be attached to the inner surface of the chest area of the gown. The user could then merely use the outer sleeve surface of the gown to press the adhesive panel against the chest area, and thereby secure the gown onto the user. A cellophane cover could overlay the adhesive panel until it was ready to be fastened to the chest area.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a nursing gown used in medical procedures that is self-donning and prevents exposure to a non-sterile field around the gown while donning and using the gown.
Surgical Gowns have been utilized in the past; yet none with the present delivery expediting characteristics of the present invention. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,901,376; 5,862,525; and U.S. Patent Application Publication 20050044608.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a self-donning nursing gown that utilizes heavy, gripping shoulder pads that grip onto the shoulders and an adhesive panel that adheres to the chest area for self-donning of a nursing gown to help prevent hand and arm exposure to a non-sterile field while donning the gown.